
Class ^tJtXA/^ 
Book ^O 15 



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EPIGRAMS 
APHORISMS 

By Oscar Wilde 




1905: JOHN W. LUCE 
AND COMPANY, BOSTON 



Copyright 1905 
By John W. Luce &* Company 



^<> 



I LIBRARY or aONQHEss) 
Two Copies rtece<¥««j 

MAY 13 ly05 

I .Oooyri£iit tiiiry 
Cu^ss <C AAc. «w 
COPY 8. 



fe. &. &. 



The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. 



<'<'^T^HE book of life be- 
gins with a man and 
a woman in a garden. 
It ends with Revelations T 



I 



Selected from 

The Picture of Dorian Grey 

An Ideal Husband 

Lady Windemere^s Fan 

The Importance of Being Earnest 

A Woman of No Importance 

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young 

Oscariana 

The Canterville Ghost 

The Decay of Lying 

The Soul of Man under Socialism 

The Critic as Artist 

The Credo 

UEnvoi 

The English Renaissance of Art 



INTRODUCTION 

y/N epigram is the sublimate of genius. It 
yj is a crystallization from the commonplace. 
In its earliest form, indeed, it was but a 
mere writing upon a wall, but the modern epigram 
is distinguished by its particular brilliancy. It em- 
bodies the very quintessence of the thoughts of the 
writer. The early Greek epigram did not aim at 
wit, or necessarily produce the feeling of surprise, 
which are essential characteristics of the modern 
one. The writer to-day who follows the Greek 
epigrammatist succeeds only in being dull. 

Chief among our English epigrammatists of 
modern days is that picturesque figure, Oscar 
O^Flahertie Wills Wilde. The London Athe- 
ncBum, indeed, spoke of him as one whose writ- 
ings would soon be found only on the shelves of 
the collector of the merely curious. But the Athe- 
ncEum, like the great public it represents, notoriously 
modifies its opinions. What Mr. Wilde wrote is 
subject, not now, but hereafter, to final judgment, 
when we have reached the right point from which 
to observe it. A literary work, like sculpture, needs 
a proper perspective. 



IV 



INTRODUCTION 



Whatever may he thought oj the writings of Oscar 
Wilde as a ivhole, it is certain that in his epigrams 
and aphorisms we have the very flower and blos- 
som of his genius. Just as Rochefoucauld put 
together the best of his own ideas and adaptations 
of the thoughts of the ancients in his " Maxims^\' 
as Franklin voiced the practical wisdom of his time 
in the sayings of ^'Poor Richard''^; as Chateau- 
briand established for Joiibert permanent fame in 
the ^'Pensees,^^ so in this compilation the literary 
genius of Oscar Wilde is revealed as in no other 
way, and we may trace, through his writings, the 
gradual evolution from palpable insincerity and striv- 
ing for effect, to conscious truth and literary expres- 
sion for the sake of the idea conveyed rather than 
for the expression's sake. Flippancy, lightness 
of touch, dilettantism, were, after all, only masks 
worn for the time, although the wearer himself 
was conscious only of the impression created by 
the mask, forgetting there was, nevertheless, some- 
thing behind the mask which gave it the appear- 
ance of life. Under the insouciance there was 
something real, something tangible — a message 
conveyed to those who were capable of receiving it, 
although in this strenuous life of the Twentieth 
Century, 7iine-tenths of the world receives its mes- 
sages only over the tape of the stock market. 



INTRODUCTION v 

It is a thankless task, in a sordid age, to preach 
the gospel of beauty. It is like trying to describe the 
coloring of an orchid to a sightless child. Perhaps 
it may not fully accord with the ideas of the cesthetes 
of whom Mr. Wilde was the recognized head to 
speak of a gospel of beauty, for it was one of his 
favorite apothegms that ^^ Beauty cannot be taught; 
only revealed.'''' We may question, although not 
with the ribald levity of the heavily-humorous editor 
of Punch, whether the most conspicuous figure in 
the (Esthetic movement in England was sincere or 
speaking merely for effect. But that there was an 
undercurrent of sincerity as well as cleverness in 
his writings, and in the school which he represented, 
is not to be doubted for a moment by one who is sin- 
cere. When he said that "to disagree with three- 
fourths of England on all points is one of the first 
elements of sanity,^' he knew the penalty he was to 
pay, but he did not shrink from it. He himself 
possessed those three things which he said the Eng- 
lish public would never forgive in the Pre-Raphael- 
ites — youth, power, and enthusiasm. And the 
English public, sometimes in good-natured fun, as 
with the Archibald Grosvenor of "Patience,''^ and 
sometimes in the bitterest of malice, as with the 
Lambert Streyke of "The Colonel,''^ proceeded to 
attack Mr. Wilde with ridicule. The Boston public. 



vi INTRODUCTION 

represented by shallow- pated students who revealed 
a lack of good-breeding by insulting him on the 
lecture platform, took its cue from these detractors. 
Yet there were those who saw the thing as it was, 
and while they doubted the good- faith of the esthetic 
leader, they saw that there was something more than 
superficiality in this recrudescence of Pre-Raphael- 
itism. For the fact remains, that in spite of the 
exuberant word-painting of Mr. Wilde and his 
tendency to lackadaisical expression in his earlier 
writings, his genius is undeniable, and the bril- 
liancy which flashes out from page after page of 
his poems and dramas is that of the diamond, and 
no fading fire of a literary will-o^-the-wisp. The 
only form of literary expression which cannot be 
silenced by ridicule is that which covers a vital 
truth; and the fact that Mr. Wilde^s work is better 
appreciated to-day than when it was written is the 
surest proof that it embodies such truth. 

It was the (Esthetic movement led by him that 
gave a new impulse to the recognition of the sepa- 
rate realm of the imagination. The poet does not 
always express his own ideas or his own emotions, 
and there was much in the movement itself which 
is no reflection of Mr. Wilde's ideas, but of that uner- 
ring sense of beauty which characterized Keats, and 
of which we find something in Swinburne. As an 



INTRODUCTION vii 

outcome of that movement we have been brought 
to recognize that many of our houses are unbeautiful, 
our furniture is inartistic, our models of design are 
not the best, and that a noble drama is impossible 
without a noble public. These are not new things, 
but it takes a long time to learn some old things. In 
impressing these truths upon the public Mr. Wilde 
performed a public service. No reader of "The 
English Renaissance of ArV^ can fail to be im- 
pressed by the fact that there is something besides ver- 
bal cleverness in it; it contains those germs of truth 
which instantly find lodgment in a fertile mind and 
become themselves stimulating and creative. There 
is more than a mere trick in the writing of such sen- 
tences as these. There is not only the subtle play of 
wit, and a command of language in which the words 
are used to clothe the thought as rich draperies are 
wrapped around a beautiful figure, but there is 
permanent and enduring truth behind the words. 

It must be remembered by the reader that these 
lines were written by Mr. Wilde before he passed 
through the emotional "Sturm und Drang" which 
is revealed in his posthumous work, and that he 
confesses, in that remarkable human document, that 
he was only amusing himself when he wrote them. 
But it is well known to psychologists that confes- 
sions often reveal what is not true, and others than 



via INTRODUCTION 

Savonarola have recanted. The man who makes 
a concession states what he believes, in the peculiar 
mental condition which leads to the confession, 
to be true. But in another mental state he recog- 
nizes, or another may recognize, that the confession 
is merely an utter self-abasement. There was, 
undoubtedly, something of the poseur in all that Mr. 
Wilde published in his lifetime, and there can also 
be no question that in majiy of these epigrams he 
was merely aiming at an effect — he was something 
of a cynic, with a sneer for social conventionalities 
which he would replace with other conventionalities. 
But this spendthrift of his own genius could not 
escape giving utterance to truths, whatever may 
have been his aim. In the epigrams from "The 
Soul of Man Under Socialism^ ^ we find him, in 
spite of his confession that he was dissimulating, a 
thorough Republican ; not a revolutionist, but a 
patience- preaching believer in the gospel of Democ- 
racy and the right of the people to govern themselves. 
Surely this was worth while. In his address in 
New York — doubtless the best expression which 
has ever been given to the doctrines of cestheticism • — 
there is a noble, calm, clear and self-contained 
logic, which, whatever its purpose, is convincing. 
Enough that he wrote these things, and we may for- 
give his purpose when we recognize the lesson 



INTRODUCTION ix 

which they contain for art and literature and the 
drama in America. 

It is good to know good work, as well as to do 
good work. In this country, at least, the name of 
Oscar Wilde is known to thousands who have not 
read his books or seen his plays — books and 
plays which have been ignored by some because 
they defied convention, by others because they were 
"too busy,'''' a synonym, in many cases, for mental 
laziness. Heavy-witted people who cannot under- 
stand that the rapier, in the hands of a master, is 
quite as effective a weapon as a bludgeon, have 
ignored these writings altogether. Yet the work 
of this master of modern epigram is deserving of 
attention, not only for its literary form and the mes- 
sage it conveys to the receptive intellect, but because 
it is an audacious manifestation of a peculiar 
genius. Out of these writings has been picked a 
handful of gems which show the author as an artist 
and which must surely lead to a better comprehen- 
sion of his genius. Accepting his posthumous 
confession, it is possible to reverse the dictum of 
the head of this cesthetic school, and postulate that 
if "It is with the best intentions that the worst 
work is done,''^ good work may also be done with 
the worst intentions. 
Boston, April, 1905. GEORGE HENRY SARGENT. 



T^he Picture of Dorian Grey 



THERE is only one thing in the world worse 
than being talked about, and that is not 
being talked about. 

Young men want to be faithful and are not, 
old men want to be faithless and cannot. 

Punctuality is the thief of time. 

One should never make one's debut with a 
scandal, one should reserve that to give interest 
to one's old age. 

The only way a woman can ever reform a man 
is by boring him so completely that he loses all 
possible mterest in life. 

With an evening coat and a white tie, even a 
stock broker can gain a reputation for being 
civilized. 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

One can always be kind to people one cares 
nothing about. 

^-"Men marry because they are tired, women be- 
cause they are curious; both are disappointed. 

Conscience and cowardice are really the same 
things. Conscience is the trade-name of the 
firm. 

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friend- 
ship, and it is the best ending for one. 

I choose my friends for their good looks, my 
acquaintances for their characters, and my enemies 
for their brains. 



The value of an idea has nothing whatever to 
do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. 

It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. 



To become the spectator of one's own life is to 
escape the suffering of life. 

[12] 



The Picture of Dorian Grey 

People who love once in their lives are really 
shallow people. What they call their loyalty 
and their fidelity is either the lethargy of custom or 
lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emo- 
tional life what constancy is to the intellectual 
life, simply a confession of failure. 

Poets know how useful passion is for publica- 
tion. Nowadays a broken heart will run to 
many editions. 

Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That ac- 
counts for the fact that we all take such pains to 
over-educate ourselves. 

"^ Women have no appreciation of good looks. 
At least, good women have not. 

There is no such thing as good influence. All 
influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific 
point of view. 

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just 
as nothing can cure senses but the soul. 

[13] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

When one is in love one begins by deceiving 
oneself, one ends by deceiving others. That 
is vi^hat the world calls romance. 

There is something infinitely mean about 
other people's tragedies. 

Women are charmingly artificial, but they have 
no sense of art. 



— ^We live in an age when only unnecessary 
things are absolutely necessary to us. 

Experience is of no ethical value, it is simply 
the name we give our mistakes. It demonstrates 
that the future will be the same as the past. 

Anybody can be good in the country. There 
are no temptations there. That is the reason 
why people who live out of town are so uncivilized. 
There are only two ways of becoming civilized. 
One is by being cultured, the other is by being 
corrupt. Country people have no opportunity 
of being either, so they stagnate. 

[14] 



The Picture of Dorian Grey 

The fatality of good resolutions is that they 
are always too late. 

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we 
blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to 
blame us. 

The worst of having a romance is that it leaves 
one so unromantic. 

When a woman finds out that her husband is 
absolutely indifferent to her she either becomes 
dreadfully dowdy or wears very smart bonnets 
that some other woman's husband has to pay for. 

Beauty is a form of Genius — is higher indeed, 
than Genius, as it needs no explanation. People 
say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial, 
but at least it is not so superficial as thought. It 
is only shallow people who do not judge by 
appearances. 

The commonest thing is delightful if one only 
hides it. 

[15] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a 
life of deception necessary for both parties. 

I can beHeve anything, provided it is incredible. 

Good artists give everything to their art and 
consequently are perfectly uninteresting them- 
selves. 

When we think that we are experimenting on 
others, we are really experimenting on ourselves. 

Those who are faithful know the pleasures of 
love ; it is the faithftti who know love's tragedies. 

Never trust a woman who wears mauve or a 
woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink 
ribbons. It means they have a history. 

It is personality not principles that move the 
age. 

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid 
thing it is always from the noblest motive. 

[i6] 



The Picture of Dorian Grey 



--T^There is hardly a person in the House of Com- 
mons worth painting, though many of them would 
be better for a little whitewashing. 



The reason we all like to think so well of others 
is that we are all afraid of ourselves. The basis 
of optimism is sheer terror. 

A cigarette is the perfect type of pleasure; it 
is exquisite and leaves one unsatisfied. 

There are only two kinds of people who are 
really fascinating: people who know everything, 
and people who know nothing. 

The secret of remaining young is never to have 
an emotion that is unbecoming. 

There is always something ridiculous about 
the passions of people whom one has ceased to 
love. 

^ - — Fashion is that by which the fantastic becomes 
for a moment universal. 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

Civilized society feels that manners are of more 
importance than morals, and the highest respecta- 
bility is of less value than the possession of a good 
chef. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone 
for cold entrees, nor an irreproachable private 
life for a bad dinner and poor wines. 

Insincerity is merely a method by which we 
can multiply our personalities. 

Real beauty ends where an intellectual ex- 
pression begins. Intellect is in itself an exaggera- 
tion and destroys the harmony of any face. The 
moment one sits down to think one becomes all 
nose or all forehead, or something horrid. 

Being natural is simply a pose. 

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of 
his enemies. 

I can't help detesting my relations. I suppose 

it comes from the fact that we can't stand other 

people having the same faults as ourselves. 

— 



The Picture of Dorian Grey 

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise 
and thinks too much to be beautiful. 

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that 
one is a sinner. 

In good society, taking some one's else admirer 
when one loses one's own always whitewashes 
a woman. 

Good resolutions are a useless attempt to inter- 
fere with scientific laws; their origin pure vanity, 
their results absolutely nil. 

One should absorb the color of life, but one 
should never remember its details. 

• The charm of the past is that it is past, but 
women never know when the curtain has fallen. 
They always want a sixth act. 

Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in 
the nineteenth century that one cannot explain 
away. 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

It is an odd thing, but every one who disappears 
is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a 
deHghtful city and possess all the attractions of 
the next world. 

One can never pay too high a price for any 
sensation. 

To test the Reality we must see it on the tight 
rope. When the verities become acrobats we can 
judge them. 

The costume of the nineteenth century is de- 
testable. Sin is the only real color-element left 
in modern life. 

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is 
quite unbearable. There is something unfair 
about its use. It is hitting below the intellect. 

^It is better to be beautiful than to be good, but 
it is better to be good than to be ugly. 

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, 
but that one is young. 



The Picture of Dorian Grey 

Only sentimentalists can repeat an emotion. 

No woman is a genius: women are a decorative 
sex. They never have anything to say, but they 
say it charmingly. They represent the triumph 
of matter over mind, just as men represent the 
triumph of mind over morals. There are only 
two kinds of women, the plain and the colored. 
The plain women are very useful. If you want 
to gain a reputation for respectability you have 
merely to take them down to supper. The other 
women are very charming. They commit one 
mistake, however. They paint in order to try 
to look young. Our grandmothers painted in 
order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit 
used to go together. That has all gone out now. 
As long as a woman can look ten years younger 
than her own daughter she is perfectly satisfied. 

It is simply expression that gives reality to 
things. 

The only difference between a caprice and a 
lifelong passion is that caprice lasts a little longer. 

[21] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

I like Wagner's music better than any other 
music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole 
time without people hearing what one says. That 
is a great advantage. 

The mind of a thoroughly well-informed man 
is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust 
and everything priced above its proper value. 

If one hears bad music it is one's duty to drown 
it by one's conversation. 

Always! that is a dreadful word. Women are 
so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by 
trying to make it last forever. 

Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us. 

It is only shallow people who require years to 
get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of 
himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can 
invent a pleasure. 



[22] 



An Ideal Husband 



II 

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt toward 
people whom we personally dislike. 

Modern women find a new scandal as be- 
coming as a new bonnet, and air them both in 
the Park every afternoon. 

Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. 
They always want one to be perfectly dumb at 
the very moment when one is longing to be 
absolutely deaf. 

Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; 
one is apt to grow old fashioned quite suddenly. 

Nothing ages women so rapidly as having 
married the general rule. 

Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people, 
just as falsehoods are the truths of other people. 

[25] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly 
modern intellect. 

No woman, plain or pretty, has any common- 
sense at all. Common-sense is the privilege of 
our sex and we men are so self-sacrificing that we 
never use it. 

Spies are of no use nowadays. Their pro- 
fession is over. The newspapers do their work 
instead. 

One should always play fairly when one has 
the winning cards. 

An acquaintance that begins with a compli- 
ment is sure to develop into a real friendship. 

Optimism begins in a broad grin, and Pessimism 
ends with blue spectacles. Both are merely poses. 

Romance should never begin with sentiment. 
It should begin with science and end with a 
settlement. 



An Ideal Husband 



When a man has once loved a woman he will 
do anything for her except continue to love her. 

Philanthropy is the refuge of people who wish 
to annoy their fellow-creatures. 

The London season is entirely matrimonial. 
People are either hunting for husbands or hiding 
from them. 

Society has gone to the dogs: a lot of nobodies 
talking about nothing. 

Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing 
ages like happiness. 

There is only one real tragedy in a woman's 
life. The fact that her past is always her lover, 
and her future invariably her husband. 

A woman whose size in gloves is seven and 
three quarters never knows much about anything. 

Questions are never indiscreet, answers some- 
times are. 

[27] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

Political parties are the only places left to us 
where people don't talk politics. 

A man who allows himself to be convinced by 
an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person, 
which accounts for so much in women that their 
husbands never appreciate in them. 

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. 

In modern life nothing produces such an effect 
as a good platitude. It makes the whole world 
kin. 

Secrets from other people's wives are a necessary 
luxury in modern life, but no man should have a 
secret from his own wife. She invariably finds 
out. Women have a wonderful instinct about 
things. They can discover everything except 
the obvious. 

If one could only teach the English how to talk 
and the Irish how to listen society would be quite 
civilized. 

[28] 



An Ideal Husband 



The only thing to do with good advice is to pass 
it on. It is never of any use to oneself. 

London society is entirely composed of beautiful 
idiots and brilliant lunatics. 

The only possible society is oneself. 

In the case of a very fascinating woman, sex is 
a challenge, not a defense. 

Women are never disarmed by compliments, 
men always are. 

Self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down 
by law. It is so demoralizing to the people for 
whom one sacrifices oneself. 

Pluck is not so common nowadays as genius. 

Science cannot grapple with the problem of 
women. It can never grapple with the irrational. 
That is why there is no future before it in this 
world. 

[29] 



Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong 
romance. 

It is always nice to be expected and not to 
arrive. 

Being educated puts one almost on a level with 
the commercial classes. 

No man is rich enough to buy back his past. 

One's past is what one is. It is the only thing 
by which people should be judged. 

The reason we are so pleased to find out other 
people's secrets is that it distracts public attention 
from our own. 

Woman's first duty in life is to her dressmaker. 
What the second duty is no one has yet discovered. 

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is 
unfashionable is what other people wear. 

Youth isn't an affectation. Youth is an art. 



An Ideal Husband 



Modern women understand everything except 
their husbands. 

Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That 
is the only proper basis for family life. 



[31] 



Lady TVindemere^ s Fan 



mmmm. 



ni 

We are all of us so hard-up nowadays that 
the only pleasant things to pay are compliments. 
They're the only things we can pay. 

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you 
very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it 
doesn't. Such is the astounding stupidity of 
optimism. 

I can resist everything except temptation. 

It is a curious thing about the game of mar- 
riage — a game, by the way, that is going out 
of fashion — the wives hold all the honors and 
invariably lose the odd trick. 

A heart doesn't go with modern dress. It 
makes one look old. 

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out. 
[35] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

A cynic is a man who knows the price of 
everything, and the value of nothing. 

A sentimentalist is a man who sees an absurd 
value in everything and doesn't know the market 
price of a single thing. 

The w^orld is packed with good women. To 
know them is a middle-class education. 

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk 
seriously about. 

Women always want one to be good. And if 
we are good when they meet us, they don't love 
us at all. They like to find us quite irretriev- 
ably bad and to leave us quite unattractively 
good. 

What consoles one nowadays is not repent- 
ance, but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of 
date, and beside, if a woman really repents, she 
has to go to a bad dressmaker, otherwise no one 
believes in her. 

[36] 



Lady Windemere's Fan 

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are ^ 
looking at the stars. 

Experience is a question of instinct about life. 

Actions are the first tragedies in life, words 
are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. 
Words are merciless. 

Ideals are dangerous things. Realities wound, 
but they are better. 

There is nothing in the world like the devo- 
tion of a married woman. It is a thing no married 
man knows anything about. 

In this world there are only two tragedies. 
One is not getting what one wants, and the other 
is getting it. The last is much the worst ; the last 
is a real tragedy ! 

Misfortunes one can endure — they come from 
outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for 
one's own faults — Ah ! there is the sting of life. 

[37] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

One can always recognize women who trust 
their husbands, they look so thoroughly unhappy. 

Good people do a great deal of harm in the 
world. Certainly the greatest harm they do is 
that they make badness of such extraordinary 
importance. It is absurd to divide people into 
good and bad. People are either charming or 
tedious. 

Men may become old, but they never become 
good. 

My experience is that as soon as people are old 
enough to know better, they don't know anything 
at all. 

It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a 
thoroughly stupid thing. 

Nothing looks so like innocence as an in- 
discretion. 

Crying is the refuge of plain women but the 
ruin of pretty ones. 

[38] 



Lady Windemere's Fan 

Men are such cowards. They outrage every 
law of the world, and are afraid of the world's 
tongue. 

It is an awfully dangerous thing to come 
across a woman who thoroughly understands one. 
They always end by marrying one. 

The youth of the present day are quite mon- 
strous. They have absolutely no respect for 
dyed hair. 

History is merely gossip. But scandal is 
gossip made tedious by morality. A man who 
moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman 
who moralizes is invariably plain. There is 
nothing in the world as unbecoming to a woman 
as a Nonconformist conscience. 

A mother who doesn't part with a daughter 
every season has no real affection. 

The world has grown suspicious of anything 
that looks like a happy married life. 

[39] 



Epigrams &' Aphorisins 

It is most dangerous nowadays for a husband 
to pay any attention to his wife in pubhc. It 
always makes people think that he beats her 
when they are alone. 

Nature's gentlemen are the worst type of gen- 
tlemen I know. 

Even business should have a picturesque back- 
ground. With a proper back-ground a woman 
can do anything. 

When men give up saying what is charming, 
they cease thinking what is charming. 

My own business always bores me to death, I 
prefer other people's. 

Wicked women bother one, good women bore 
one. That is the only difference between them. 

How marriage ruins a man ! It is as demoral- 
izing as cigarettes, and far more expensive. 



[40] 



The 
Importance of Being Earnest 



IV 

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 
Modern life would be very tedious if it were 
either, and modern literature an impossibility. 

The amount of women who flirt with their own 
husbands is scandalous. It is simply washing 
one's clean linen in public. 

The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. 
Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be en- 
couraged in others. 

. A man who desires to get married should know 
either everything or nothing. 

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch 
it and the bloom is gone. Fortunately, in Eng- 
land at any rate, Education produces no effect 
whatsoever. 

[43] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

Relations are simply a tedious pack of people 
who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how 
to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. 

The way to behave to a woman is to make love 
to her if she is pretty, and to some one else if she 
is plain. 

Women only call each other sister after they 
have called each other a lot of other things first. 

Memory is the diary that chronicles things 
that never have happened and couldn't possibly 
have happened. 

The good end happily, the bad unhappily. 
That is what fiction means. 

The two weak points of our age are want of 
principle and want of profile. Style depends 
largely on the way the chin is worn. They are 
worn very high at present. 

Divorces are made in heaven. 
[44] 



The Importance of Being Earnest 

Long engagements give people the opportunity 
of finding out each other's character before 
marriage, which is never advisable. 

No v^oman should ever be quite accurate about 
her age. It looks so calculating. 

Arguments are to be avoided; they are always 
vulgar and often convincing. 

Never speak disrespectfully of society. Only 
people who can't get into it do that. 

Girls never marry the men they flirt with. 
Girls don't think it right. 

It is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about 
what one should read and what one shouldn't. 
More than half of modern culture depends on 
what one shouldn't read. 

It is important not to keep a business engage- 
ment if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty 
of life. 

[45] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

If one plays good music people don't listen, 
and if one plays bad music people don't talk. 

What with the duties expected of one during 
one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after 
one's death, land has ceased to be either a profit 
or pleasure. It gives one position and prevents 
one from keeping it up. 

By persistently remaining single a man con- 
verts himself into a permanent public temptation. 

One's duty as a gentleman should never inter- 
fere with one's pleasures in the slightest degree. 

One must be serious about something if one 
wants to have any amusement in life. 

An engagement is hardly a serious one that has 
not been broken off at least once. 

The only way to atone for being occasionally 
over-dressed is by being always absolutely over- 
educated. 

[46] 



The Importance of Being Earnest 

Whenever one has anything unpleasant to say 
one should always be quite candid. 

Flowers are as common in the country as people 
are in London. 

It is very vulgar to talk about one's own busi- 
ness. Only people like stock-brokers do that, 
and then merely at dinner parties. 

Hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental de- 
cay in the young, of physical weakness in the old. 

Three addresses always inspire confidence — 
even in tradesmen. 

All women become like their mothers — that 
is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. 

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what 
their children say to them. The old-fashioned 
respect for the young is fast dying out. 

In married life three is company and two is 
none. 

[47] 



A Woman of No Importance 



Twenty years of romance make a woman look 
like a ruin, but twenty years of marriage make 
her something like a public building. 

To have the reputation of possessing the most 
perfect social tact, talk to every woman as if you 
loved her, and to every man as if he bored you. 

To get into the best society nowadays, one has 
either to feed people, amuse people, or shock 
people. 

Women are pictures, men are problems: if you 
want to know what a woman really means, look 
at her, don't listen to her. 

There is no such thing as romance in our day, 
women have become too brilliant; nothing spoils 
a romance so much as a sense of humor in the 
woman. 

[51] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

Children begin by loving their parents; after a 
time they judge them, rarely, if ever, do they for- 
give them. 

If a man is a gentleman he knows quite enough, 
and if he is not a gentleman whatever he knows 
is bad for him. 

Discontent is the first step in the progress 
of a man or a nation. 

Sentiment is all very well for a boutonniere, 
but a well-tied tie is the first serious step in life. 

Clever people never listen and stupid people 
never talk. 

The youth of America is their oldest tradition. 
It has been going on now for three hundred 
years. To hear them talk one would imagine 
they were in their first childhood. As far as 
civilization goes they are in their second. 

Nowadays it is only the unreadable that occurs. 
[52] 



A Woman of No Importance 

Women have become so highly educated that 
nothing should surprise them except happy 
marriages. 

Health — the silliest word in our language, 
and one knows the popular idea of health. The 
English country gentleman galloping after a 
fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the un- 
eatable. 

It is safer to believe evil of everyone until 
people are found out to be good, but that re- 
quires a great deal of investigation nowadays. 

The basis of every scandal is an absolutely 
immoral certainty. 

. Plain women are always jealous of their hus- 
bands, beautiful women never are; they have no 
time, they are always so occupied in being jealous 
of other people's husbands. 

A bad man is the sort of man who admires 
innocence. 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

A bad woman is the sort of woman a man 
never gets tired of. 

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go 
about nowadays saying things against one, be- 
hind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely 
true. 

America is a Paradise for women — that is 
why, like Eve, the American women are extremely 
anxious to get out of it. 



To elope is cowardly ; it is running away from 
mger; 
ern life. 



danger; and danger has become so rare in mod- 



The one advantage of playing with fire is that 
one never even gets singed. It is the people who 
don't know how to play with it that get burned 
up. 

There is no objection to plain women being 
Puritans ; it is the only excuse they have for being 
plain. 

[54] 



A Woman of No Importance 

Women as a sex are Sphinxes without secrets. 

The Soul is born old, but it grows young; that 
is the comedy of life. The Body is born young 
and grows old; that is Life's tragedy. 

Vulgar habit people have nowadays of asking 
one, after one has given them an idea, whether 
one is serious or not. Nothing is serious except 
passion. The intellect is an instrument on which 
one plays, that is all. The only serious form of 
intellect is the British intellect. And on the 
British form of intellect the illiterates play the 
drum. 

All Americans dress well — they get their 
clothes in Paris. 

It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins 
nor curiosities in America when they have their 
mothers and their manners. 

After a good dinner one could forgive anybody, 
even one's own relations. 

[55] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

Men are horribly tedious when they are good 
husbands, and abominably conceited when they 
are not. 

Men always want to be a woman's first love — 
women like to be a man's last romance. 

Women are a fascinatingly wilful set. Every 
woman is a rebel and usually in wild revolt 
against herself. 

All men are married women's property; that is 
the only true definition of what married women's 
property really is. 

One can survive everything except Death, and 
live down everything except a good reputation. 

Society is a necessary thing. No man has any 
real success in this world unless he has women 
to back him, and women rule society. If you 
have not got women on your side you are quite 
over. You might as well be a barrister, or a 
stock-broker, or a journalist at once. 

[56] 



A Woman of No Importance 

The history of woman is the history of the 
worst form of tryanny the world has ever known : 
the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is 
the only tyranny that lasts. 

Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the 
complex. 

One should sympathize with the joy, the beauty, 
the color of life — the less said about life's sores 
the better. 

Women have always been picturesque protests 
against the mere existence of common sense. 

When good Americans die they go to Paris, 
when bad Americans die they go to America. 

When a man is old enough to do wrong he should 
be old enough to do right also. 

When one has never heard a man's name in the 
course of one's life it speaks volumes for him; he 
must be quite respectable. 

[57] " 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

Duty is what one expects from others — it is not 
what one does oneself. 

Enghsh women conceal their feelings until after 
they are married, then they show them. 

One should never trust a woman who tells 
one her real age. A woman who would tell that 
would tell anything. 

One should never take sides in anything — 
taking sides is the beginning of sincerity, and 
earnestness follows shortly after, and the human 
being becomes a bore. 

The happiness of a married man depends on 
the people he has not married. 

One should always be in love : that is the reason 
one should never marry. 

The only difference between a saint and a 
sinner is that every saint has a past, and every 
sinner has a future. 

[58] 



A Woman of No Importance 

The world havS always laughed at its own 
tragedies, that being the only way in which it 
has been able to bear them; consequently, what- 
ever the world has treated seriously belongs to 
the comedy side of things. 

Women love men for their defects; if men have 
enough of them women will forgive them every- 
thing, even their gigantic intellects. 

The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure 
of being terribly deceived. 

Moderation is a fatal thing; nothing succeeds 
like excess. 

Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdi- 
ness. 

When a man says he has exhausted life one 
always knows life has exhausted him. 

Men know life too early, women know life too 
late. 

[59] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

The world is divided into two classes, those 
who believe the incredible, and those who do the 
improbable. 

All thought is immoral. Its very essence is 
destruction. If you think of anything you kill it. 
Nothing survives being thought of. 

Women have a much better time than men in 
this world; there are far more things forbidden 
to them. 

To be in society is merely a bore, but to be 
out of it simply a tragedy. 

There is nothing like youth. The middle aged 
are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's 
lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. 
Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one 
is born a king, and most people die in exile, like 
most kings. 

American women are wonderfully clever in 
concealing their parents. 

[60] 



A Woman of No Importance 

A really grande passion is comparatively rare 
nowadays. It is the privilege of people who have 
nothing to do. That is the only use of the idle 
classes in the country. 

More marriages are ruined nowadays by the 
common sense of the husband than by anything 
else. How can a woman be expected to be happy 
with a man who insists on treating her as if she 
were a perfectly rational being. 

A husband is a sort of promissory note — a 
woman is tired of meeting him. 

Life is a mauvais quart d^heure made up of 
exquisite moments. 



[6i] 



Phrases and Philosophies for the 
Use of the Young 



VI 

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as 
possible. What the second duty is no one has 
yet discovered. 

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people 
to account for the curious attractiveness of others. 

Those who see any difference between soul and 
body have neither. 

Religions die when they are proved to be true. 
Science is the record of dead religions. 

The well bred contradict other people. The 
wise contradict themselves. 

Nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest 
importance. 

Dulness is the coming of age of seriousness. 
[65] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or 
later, to be found out. 

In all unimportant matters style not sincerity 
is the essential. In all important matters style 
not sincerity is the essential. 

It is only by not paying our bills that we can 
hope to live in the memory of the commercial 
classes. 

y Only the shallow know themselves. 

Time is waste of money. 

There is a fatality about all good resolutions. 
They are invariably made too soon. 

Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right 
or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual 
development. 

A truth ceases to be true when more than one 
person believes in it. 

[66] 



Phrases and Philosophies 

The vanishing point of social tolerance is rep- 
resented by a woman without sentiment enough 
to yearn for love in a cottage, and without sense 
enough to refuse it. 

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. 

One should either be a work of art, or wear a 
work of art. 

It is only the superficial qualities that last. 
Man's deeper nature is soon found out. 

Industry is the root of all ugliness. 

The old believe everything; the middle aged 
suspect everything; the young know everything. 

The condition of perfection is idleness; the aim 
of perfection is youth. 

Modern morality consists in accepting the 
standard of one's age. 

Women give to men the very gold of their 
lives, but they invariably want it back in very 
small change. 

[67] 



Oscariana 



VII 

The costume of the nineteenth century is de- 
testable. Sin is the only real color element left 
in modern life. 

Evening clothes on a London merchant remind 
one of a morocco binding on a cook-book or a 
doyly on a stove lid. 

Credit is the capital of a younger son, and he 
can live charmingly on it. 

To get back one's youth one has merely to re- 
peat one's follies. 

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creep- 
ing common sense, and discover, when it is too 
late, that the only thing one never regrets are 
one's mistakes. 

No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and 
no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is. 

[71] 



Epigrams & Aphorisms 

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is in 
his heart. 

Pleasure is nature's test, her sign of approval. 
' When we are happy we are always good ; but when 
we are good we are not always happy. 

Most people become bankrupt through having 
invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have 
ruined oneself over poetry is an honor. 

Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us 
'' just as Humanity treats its gods. They worship 
us, and are always bothering us to do something 
for them. 

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui. 
That is the one sin for which there is no forgive- 
ness. 

There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny 
does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too 
cruel for that. 

[72] 



Oscariana 

How fond women are of doing dangerous 
things. It is one of the qualities in them that I 
admire most. A woman will flirt with anybody 
in the world as long as other people are looking on. 

A Radical is merely a man who is never dined, 
and a Tory simply a gentleman who has never 
thought. 

The world has been made by fools that wise 
men may live in it. 



[73] 



T^he Cantervilk Ghost 



VIII 

The subjects discussed were merely such as 
form the ordinary conversation of cultured 
Americans of the better class, such as the im- 
mense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport 
over Sara Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty 
of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes and 
hominy, even in the best English houses; the 
importance of Boston in the development of the 
world-soul; the advantages of the baggage-check 
system in railway traveling ; and the sweetness of 
the Nev/ York accent as compared to the Lon- 
don drawl. 

The reward of all good little American girls is 
the coronet — if they are good enough and rich 
enough. 

If a woman cannot make her mistakes charm- 
ingly she is merely a female. 



[77] 



"The Decay of Lying 



IX 

Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is 
the proper aim of Art. 

y Art reveals Nature's lack of design, her curious 
crudities, her absolutely unfinished condition. Na- 
ture has good intentions, but she cannot carry 
them out. Art is our gallant attempt to teach 
Nature her proper place. 

The crude commercialism of America, its 
materializing spirit, its indifference to the poetical 
side of things, its lack of imagination and of high 
unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that coun- 
try having adopted for its national hero one who, 
according to his own confession, was incapable of 
telling a lie; and it is not too much to say that 
the story of George Washington and the cherry 
tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space 
of time, than any other moral tale in the whole 
of literature. 

[8i] 



Epigrams ^ Aphorisms 

The aim of the Har is simply to charm, to de- 
light, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of 
civilized society. 

Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates 
Life. 

Literature always anticipates life. It does not 
copy it, but molds it to its purpose. 

No great artist ever sees things as they really 
are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. 

Most of our modern portrait painters are 
I doomed to absolute oblivion. They never paint 
what they see. They paint what the public sees, 
and the public never sees anything. 

At twilight nature becomes a wonderfully sug- 
gestive effect, and is not without loveliness, though 
' perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations 
from the poets. 

England is the home of lost ideas. 
[82] 



The Decay of Lying 



Nature hates Mind. Thinking is the most un- 
healthy thing in the world, and people die of it 
just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, 
in England at any rate, thought is not catching. 
Our splendid physique is entirely due to our 
national stupidity. 

People are beginning to be over-educated; at 
least everybody who is incapable of learning has 
taken to teaching. 

If a man is sufficiently unimaginative to pro- 
duce evidence in support of a lie, he might just 
as well speak the truth at once. 

What is interesting about people in good society 
is the mask that each one of them wears, not the 
reality that lies behind the mask. 

We are a degraded race and have sold our 
birthright for a mess of facts. 

Nature is always behind the age. 
[83] 



Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 

Many a young man starts in life with a natural 
gift of exaggeration which, if nurtured in con- 
genial and sympathetic surroundings, might grow 
into something really great and wonderful. But, 
as a rule, he comes to nothing. He either falls 
into careless habits of accuracy, or takes to fre- 
quenting the society of the aged and well-in- 
formed. Both things are equally fatal to his 
imagination, as indeed they would be fatal to the 
imagination of anybody, and in a short time he 
develops a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truth 
telling, begins to verify all statements made in his 
presence, has no hesitation in contradicting 
people who are much younger than himself, and 
often ends by writing novels which are so like 
life that no one can possibly believe in their 
probability. 

Lying for the sake of the improvement of the 
young, which is the basis of home education, still 
lingers among us, but the only form of lying that 
is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its own 
sake, and the highest development of this is, lying 
in art. 

[84] 



The Decay of Lying 



One touch of Nature may make the whole 
world kin, but two touches of Nature will destroy- 
any work of art. 

All bad art comes from returning to Life and 
Nature and elevating them into ideals. Life and 
Nature may sometimes be used as part of Art's 
rough material, but before they are of any real 
service to Art they must be translated into artistic 
conventions. 

The only beautiful things are the things that 
do not concern us. 

Nobody of any real culture ever talks nowadays 
about the beauty of the sunset. Sunsets are 
quite old fashioned. 



[85] 



The Soul of Man Under 
Socialism 



X 

There are three kinds of despots. There is 
the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There 
is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. 
There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul 
and body ahke. The first is called the Prince. 
The second is called the Pope. The third is 
called the People. 

There is not a single real poet or prose writer 
of this century on whom the British public have 
not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, 
and these diplomas practically take the place with 
us, of what in France is the formal recognition 
of an Academy of Letters, and fortunately make 
the establishment of such an institution quite un- 
necessary in England. 

It is immoral to use private property in order 
to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the 
institution of private property. 

[89] 



/ 



Epigrams ^ Aphorisms 

Evolution is the law of life, and there is no 
evolution save toward Individualism. 

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. 
It is asking others to live as one wishes to live. 

In America the President reigns for four years, 
and Journalism governs forever and ever. For- 
tunately, in America, Journalism has carried its 
authority to the grossest and most brutal ex- 
treme. It is no longer seriously treated. 

In centuries before ours the public nailed the"\ 
ears of journalists to the pump. In this century (-^^ 
journalists have nailed their own ears to the key-y 
hole. 

One who is an emperor or king may stoop down 
and pick up a brush for a painter, but when the 
democracy stoops down it is merely to throw 
mud. 

The majority of men spoil their lives by an 
exaggerated and unhealthy altruism. 

[90] 



The Soul of Man Under Socialism 

A Community is infinitely more brutalized by 
the habitual employment of punishment than it 
is by the occasional occurrence of crime. 

Disobedience in the eyes of any one who has 
read history is man's original virtue. It is through 
disobedience that progress has been made, through 
disobedience and through rebellion. 

He who would lead a Christ- like life is he who 
is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a 
great poet, or a great man of science, or a young 
student at the University, or one who watches 
sheep upon a moor, or a maker of dramas like 
Shakespeare, or a thinker about God like Spinoza, 
or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman 
who throws his nets into the sea. It does not 
matter what he is as long as he realizes the per- 
fection of the soul that is within him. 

There is only one class in the community that 
thinks more about money than the rich, and that 
is the poor. The poor can think of nothing 
else. That is the misery of being poor. 

[91] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

Individualism does not come to a man with any 
claims upon him at all. It comes naturally and 
inevitably out of man. It is the point to which 
all development tends. It is the differentiation 
to which all organisms grow. It is the perfec- 
tion that is inherent in every mode of life, and 
toward which every mode of life quickens. In- 
dividualism exercises no compulsion over man. 
On the contrary, it says to man that he should 
suffer no compulsion to be exercised over him. 
It does not try to force people to be good. It 
knows that people are good when they are let 
alone. To ask whether Individualism is prac- 
tical is like asking whether Evolution is practical. 
Evolution is the law of life, and there is no evolu- 
tion except toward individualism. 

To call an artist morbid because he deals with 
morbidity as his subject-matter is as silly as if 
one called Shakespeare mad because he wrote 
King Lear. 

As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, 
but it is finer to take than to beg. 

[92] 



.^; ■ ■■;■_. 



The Soul of Man Under Socialism 

A map of the world that does not include 
Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves 
out the one country at which Humanity is always 
landing. And when Humanity lands there, it 
looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. 
Progress is the realization of Utopias. 

Nothing should be able to harm a man except 
himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man 
at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. 
What is outside of him should be a matter of no 
importance. 

The public has always in every age been badly 
brought up. They are continually asking art 
to be popular, to please their want of taste, to 
flatter their absurd vanity, to show them what 
they ought to be tired of seeing, and to distract 
their thoughts when they are tired of their own 
stupidity. Now art should never try to be popu- 
lar. The public should try to make itself artistic. 

The public have an insatiable curiosity to 
know everything, except what is worth knowing. 

[93] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

What man has sought for is neither pain or 
pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to 
live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do 
so without exercising restraint on others, or 
suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasur- 
able to him, he will be saner, healthier, more 
civilized, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's 
test, her sign of approval. When man is happy 
he is at harmony with himself and his environ- 
ment. 

A work of art is the unique result of a unique 
temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact 
that its author is what he is. It has nothing to 
do with the fact that other people want what 
they want. Indeed, the moment the artist takes 
notice of what other people want, and tries to 
supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist and 
becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest 
or a dishonest tradesman. Art is the most in- 
tense mode of individualism the world has known. 



[94] 



The Critic as Artist 



XI 

I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally 
written by people who have either entirely lost 
their memories, or have never done anything 
worth remembering ; which, however, is, no doubt, 
the true explanation of their popularity, as the 
English public always feels perfectly at its ease 
when a mediocrity is talking to it. 

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It for- 
gives everything except genius. 

Cheap editions of great books may be delight- 
ful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely 
detestable. 

Listening to the conversation of some one older 
than yourself is always a dangerous thing to do; 
if you allow it to degenerate to a habit, you will 
find it absolutely fatal to any intellectual develop- 
ment. 

[97] 



Epigrams &^ Aphorisms 

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, 
and it is always Judas who writes the biography. 

Learned conversation is either the affectation 
of the ignorant or the profession of the mentally 
unemployed. Improving conversation is merely 
the foolish method by which the still more foolish 
philanthropist feebly tries to disarm the just 
rancor of the criminal classes. 

How appalling is the ignorance which is the 
inevitable result of the fatal habit of imparting 
opinions! 

Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of 
the ethical sphere, so the nuisance of the in- 
tellectual sphere is the man who is so occupied 
in trying to educate others, that he has never 
had any time to educate himself. 

Man is a rational animal who always loses his 
temper when he is called upon to act in accordance 
with the dictates of reason. 

[98] 



The Critic as Artist 



Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the 
opinion that has survived. 

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and 
impartially admire all schools of art. 

There are two ways of disliking art. One is 
to dislike it. The other is to like it rationally. 

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing. 

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. 
To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious 
is to be inartistic. 

England has done one thing; it has invented 
and established public opinion, which is an 
attempt to organize the ignorance of the com- 
munity, and to elevate it to the dignity of physical 
force. 

There is only one thing worse than Injustice, 
and that is Justice without her sword in her 
hand. When Right is not Might, it is Evil. 

[99] 



LofC- 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

It is always with the best intentions that the 
worst work is done. 

To be good according to the vulgar standard 
of goodness is quite easy. It merely requires a 
certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack 
of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion 
for middle-class respectability. 

Science is out of the reach of morals, for her 
eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out 
of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed 
upon things beautiful and immortal and ever- 
changing. 

Though of all poses a moral pose is the most 
offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. 
It is a form of recognition of the importance of 
treating life from a definite and reasoned stand- 
point. 

Life makes us pay too high a price for its 
wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets 
at a cost that is monstrous and infinite. 

[loo] 



The Critic as Artist 



It takes a thoroughly selfish age, like our own, 
to deify self-sacrifice. 

Those who try to lead the people can only do 
so by following the mob. 

Charity creates a multitude of evils. 

The mere existence of conscience is a sign of 
our imperfect development. It must be merged 
in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial 
is simply a method by which man arrests his 
progress. 

When man acts he is a puppet. When he 
describes he is a poet. 

• Life is terribly deficient in form. Its catas- 
trophes happen in a wrong way and to the wrong 
people. There is a grotesque horror about its 
comedies, and its tragedies seem to culminate in 
farce. One is always wounded when one ap- 
proaches it. Things last either too long or not 
long enough. 

[lOl] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

Conversation should touch everything, but 
should concentrate itself on nothing. 

Modern journalism justifies its own existence 
by the great Darwinian principle of the survival 
of the vulgarest. 

The difference between literature and journal- 
ism is that journalism is unreadable, and litera- 
ture is not read. 

There is much to be said in favor of modern 
journalism. By giving us the opinions of the 
uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the igno- 
rance of the community. 

Indiscretion is the better part of valor. 

The sure way of knowing nothing about life 
is to try to make oneself useful. 

The basis of action is lack of imagination. 
It is the last resource of those who know not how 
to dream. 

[102] 



The Critic as Artist 



He who would stir us by fiction must either 
give us an entirely new back-ground, or reveal 
to us the soul of man in its inmost workings. 
The first is for the moment being done for us by 
Mr. Rudyard Kipling. As one turns over the 
pages of his "Plain Tales from the Hills," one 
feels as if one were seated under a palm tree read- 
ing life by superb flashes of vulgarity. The 
mere lack of style in the story teller gives an odd 
journalistic realism to what he tells us. From 
the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a 
genius who drops his aspirates. From the 
point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows 
vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. 
He is our first authority on the second-rate, and 
has seen marvelous things through keyholes. 

We live in the age of the over- worked, and the 
under-educated; the age in which people are so 
industrious that they become absolutely stupid. 

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing 
in the world, the most difficult and the most 
intellectual. 



[103] 



Epigrams @^ Aphorisms 

It is to do nothing that the elect exist. 

Imagination is the result of heredity. It is 
simply concentrated race-experience. 

A dreamer is one who can only find his way 
by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees 
the dawn before the rest of the world. 

It is because Humanity has never known 
where it was going that it has been able to find 
its way. 

Society often forgives the criminal; it never 
forgives the dreamer. 

After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been 
weeping over sins that I had never committed, 
and mourning over tragedies that were not my 
own. Music always seems to me to produce 
that effect. It creates for one a past of which 
one has been ignorant, and fills one with a sense 
of sorrows that have been hidden from one's 
tears. 

[104] 



The Critic as Artist 



The meaning of any beautiful created thing 
is, at least, as much in the soul of him who looks 
at it, as it was in his soul who wrought it. 

When we have fully discovered the scientific 
laws that govern life, we shall realize that the 
one person who has more illusions than the 
dreamer is the man of action. 

Better to take pleasure in a rose than to put 
its root under a microscope. 

The Past is of no importance. The Present 
is of no importance. It is with the Future that we 
have to deal. For the Past is what man should 
not have been. The Present is what man ought 
not to be. The Future is what artists are. 

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the 
public. The public are to him non-existent. 

Anybody can write a three-volume novel. It 
merely requires a complete ignorance of both 
life and literature. 

[105] 



Epigrams (Sf Aphorisms 

To know the vintage and quality of a wine one 
need not drink the whole cask. 

It is ven- much more difficult to talk about a 
thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual 
life that is, of course, obvious. Anybody can 
make history. Only a great man can write it. 

To give an accurate description of what has 
never occurred is the inalienable privilege and 
proper occupation of the historian. 

Technique is really personality. That is the 
reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the 
pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic 
critic can understand it. 

Ever}' centur\' that produces poetr}- is, so far, 
an artificial centur}-, and the work that seems to 
us to be the most natural and simple product of 
its time is always the result of the most self-con- 
scious effort. There is no fine art without self- 
consciousness, and self-consciousness and a criti- 
cal spirit are one. 

[io6] 



The Critic as Artist 



Education is an admirable thing, but it is well 
to remember from time to time that nothing that 
is worth knowing can be taught. 

The Creeds are believed, not because they are 
rational, but because they are repeated. Yes, 
Form is eversihing. It is the secret of Life. 
Find expression for a sorrow and it will become 
dear to you. Find expression for a joy and you 
intensify its ecstacy. Do you wish to love ? Use 
Love's Litany, and the words will create the yearn- 
ing from which the world fancies that they spring. 
Have you a grief that corrodes your heart? 
Steep yourself in the language of grief, learn its 
utterance from Prince Hamlet and Queen Con- 
stance, and you will find that the mere expression 
is a mode of consolation, and that Form, which 
is the birth of Passion, is also the death of Pain. 
And so to return to the sphere of Art, it is Fonn 
that creates, that creates not merely the critical 
temperament, but also the aesthetic instinct that 
reveals to one all things under the condition of 
beaut}\ Start xs'ith the worship of Form, and there is 
no secret in Art that will not be revealed to you. 

[107] 



Epigrams Sf Aphorisms 

We are born in an age when only the dull are 
treated seriously. 

There have been critical ages that have not 
been creative, in the ordinary sense of the word, 
ages in which the spirit of man has sought to set 
in order the treasures of his treasure house, to 
separate the gold from the silver, and the silver 
from the lead, to count over the jewels, and to 
give names to the pearls. But there has never 
been a creative age that has not been critical 
also. For it is the critical faculty that invents 
fresh forms. The tendency of creation is to 
repeat itself. It is to the critical instinct that 
we owe each new school that springs up, each 
new mold that art finds ready to its hands. 

A truly great artist cannot conceive of life 
being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any 
conditions other than those that he has selected. 
Creation employs all its critical faculty within 
its own sphere. It may not use it in a sphere that 
belongs to others. It is exactly because a man 
cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it. 

[io8] 



The Critic as Artist 



It is so easy for people to have sympathy for 
suffering. It is so difficult for them to have 
sympathy with thought. Indeed, ordinary people 
seem to imagine that, when they have said a 
theory is dangerous, they have pronounced its 
condemnation, whereas it is only such theories 
that have any true intellectual value. 



[109] 



Tthe Credo 



XII 

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's 
aim. 

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful 
things are corrupt without being charming. 

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral 
book. Books are well written or badly written. 
That is all. 

The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is 
the rage of Caliban at seeing his own face in the 
glass. 

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism 
is the rage of Caliban at not seeing his own face 
in the glass. 

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows 
that the work is new, complex, and vital. 

[113] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical 
sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable man- 
nerism of style. 

From the point of view of form, the type of all 
the arts is the art of the musician. From the 
point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the 
type. 



We can forgive a man for making a useful 
thing as long as he does not admire it. The only 
excuse for making a useless thing is that one ad- 
mires it intensely. 



[114] 



L'^ Envoi 



XIII 

It is not enough that a work should conform 
to the aesthetic demands of the age, there should 
be about it, if it is to give us any permanent de- 
light, the impress of a distinct individuality. What- 
ever work we have in the nineteenth century must 
rest on the two poles of personality and perfection. 

This increased sense of the absolutely satisfy- 
ing value of beautiful workmanship, this recogni- 
tion of the primary importance of the sensuous 
element in art, this love of art for art's sake, is 
the point in which we of the younger school 
have made a departure from the teaching of Mr. 
Ruskin — a departure definitive and different and 
decisive. 



[117] 



The English Renaissance of Art 



XIV 

The Origin of the Art Revolution 

In the year 1847 ^ number of young men in 
London, all admirers of Keats, were in the habit 
of meeting together and discussing art. They had 
determined to revolutionize poetry and painting. 
To do so was to lose, in England, all their rights 
as citizens. They had those things which the 
English public never forgives — youth, power, and 
enthusiasm. Satire paid the usual homage which 
mediocrity yields to genius, blinding the British 
public to what is noble and beautiful, but harming 
the artist not at all. To disagree with three- 
fourths of England on all points is one of the first 
elements of sanity, which is a deep source of 
consolation in all moments of spiritual doubt. 

These young men called themselves Pre- 
Raphaelites because, as opposed to the facile 
abstractions of Raphael they thought they had 
found a stronger realism of imagination, a more 

[121] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

careful realism of technique, an individuality 
more intense. 

The Sunflower and the Lily 

You have heard, I think, a few of you, of two 
flowers connected with the aesthetic movement in 
England, said (I assure you erroneously) to be the 
food of some aesthetic young men. Well, let me 
tell you that the reason we love the lily and the 
sunflower, in spite of what Mr. Gilbert may tell 
you, is not for any vegetable fashion at all; it is 
because these two lovely flowers are in England 
the two most perfect models of design, the most 
naturally adapted for decorative art — the gaudy 
leonine beauty of the one and the precious loveli- 
ness of the other giving to the artist the most 
entire and perfect joy. And so with you ; let there 
be no flower in your meadows that does not 
wreathe its tendrils around your pillows, no little 
leaf in your Titan forests that does not lend its 
form to design, no curving spray of wild rose or 
brier that does not live forever in carven arch or 
window of marble, no bird in your air that is not 

[122] 



The English Renaissance of Art 

giving the iridescent wonder of its color, the exqui- 
site curves of its wings in flight, to make more 
precious the preciousness of simple adornment; 
for the voices that have their dwelling in sea and 
mountain are not the chosen music of liberty only. 
Other messages are there in the wonder of wind- 
swept heights and the majesty of silent deep — 
messages that, if you will listen to them, will give 
you the wonder of all new imagination, the treas- 
ure of all new beauty. We spend our days, each 
one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well, 
the secret of life is in art. 

<$» 

The Novel and the Drama 

The novel has not killed the play, as some 
critics would persuade us. The romantic period 
of France shows that the work of Balzac and of 
Hugo grew up side by side together — nay, more, 
were complementary to each other, although 
neither of them saw it. The drama is the meet- 
ing-place of art and life ; it deals, as Mazzini said, 
not merely with man, but with social man, with 
man in relation to God and to humanity. It is 

[123] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms 

the product of a period of great national, united 
energy. It is impossible without a noble public, 
and it belongs to such ages as the age of Elizabeth 
at London, Pericles at Athens. It is part of such 
lofty, moral, and spiritual ardor as came to Greece 
after the defeat of the Persian fleet, and to Eng- 
lishmen after the wreck of the Armada of Spain. 

Shelley felt how incomplete our movement was 
in this respect, and has shown in one great tragedy 
by what terror and pity he would have pacified 
our age, but in spite of the "Cenci" the drama is 
one of the artistic forms through which the genius of 
England seeks in vain an outlet and an expression. 

Where Morality is Not in Question 

In nations, as in individuals, if the passion for 
creation be not accompanied by the critical, the 
aesthetic faculty also, it will be sure to waste its 
strength. It is not an increased moral sense or 
moral supervision that your literature needs. 
Indeed, one should never talk of a moral or im- 
moral poem. Poems are either well written or 
badly written; that is all. Any element of morals 

[124] 



The English Renaissance of Art 

or implied reference to a standard of good and 
evil in art is often a sign of a certain incomplete- 
ness of vision. x\ll good work aims at a purely 
artistic effect. But as in your cities so in your 
literature, it is an increased sensibility to beauty 
that is lacking. All noble work is not national 
merely, but universal. Spiritual freedom your 
own generous lives and liberal air will give you. 
From us you will learn the classical restraint of 
form. Love art for its own sake and then all 
things that you need will be added to you. This 
devotion to beauty, and to the creation of beautiful 
things, is the test of all great civilizations; it is 
what makes the life of each citizen a sacrament, 
and not a speculation. For beauty is the only 
thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall 
away like sand, creeds follow one another, but 
what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a posses- 
sion for all eternity. 

America to Complete the Movement 

It is rather, perhaps, to you that we would turn 
to complete and perfect this great movement of 

[125] 



Epigrams &f Aphorisms , 

ours, for there is something Hellenic in your air 
and world, something that has a quicker breath 
of the joy and power of Elizabeth's England about 
it than our ancient civilization can give us. For 
you, at least, are young; no hungry generations 
tread you down, and the past does not mock you 
with the ruins of a beauty the secret of whose 
creation you have lost. That very absence of 
tradition which Ruskin thought would rob your 
rivers of their laughter and your flowers of their 
light may be rather the source of your freedom 
and strength. To speak in literature with the 
perfect rectitude of the movement of animals, and 
the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees 
and the grass by the roadside, has been defined 
by one of your poets as the flawless triumph of 
art; it is a triumph which you above all other 
nations may be destined to achieve. For the 
voices that have their dwelling in sea and moun- 
tain are not the chosen music of liberty only. 
Other messages are there, if you will but listen to 
them — may yield you the splendor of some new 
imagination, the marvel of some new liberty. 



[126] 



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